Some waste facts and figures

Every day we throw away: 

• 5 million potatoes
• 7 million slices of bread
• 1.3 million yoghurts and yoghurt drinks 

see Love Food Hate Waste

Each week the average family in a developed country gets through 4 glass bottles or jars, 13 cans, 3 plastic bottles and 5 kilograms of paper

Each UK household produces about 1 tonne of rubbish annually, amounting to about 27 million tonnes for the UK each year

Every year over 10 billion steel cans are produced and up to a quarter of every new can is made up of recycled steel

Each UK resident uses an equivalent of 200 cans a year - if you put these end to end this is as high as the Tower of London

15 minutes of millennial fireworks celebrations in London produced more dioxin than would more than century’s operation of the South East London Combined Heat and Power Energy from Waste facility. [Source UK Environment Agency 2000]

Producing steel from recycled material saves 75% of the energy needed if steel were made from virgin material

Waste in the construction industry (source: Environment Agency)

The construction sector uses over 420 million tonnes of material resources

Approximately 13 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste is material delivered to sites but never used.

Annually, 90 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste is generated - the industry produces three times the waste produced by all UK households combined.

About 10% of national energy consumption is used in the production and transport of construction products and materials, and the energy consumed in building services accounts for about half of the UK’s emissions of carbon dioxide.

Every year, the average dustbin contains enough unrealised energy for 500 baths, 3500 showers or 5,000 hours of television. [source: www.assurre.org]

On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every 7 weeks [source: http://www.wastewatch.org.uk/Homepage ]

Every 8 months the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere (the largest lake in England) [source: www.wastewatch.org.uk ]